start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
by Fair-Ithil
Summary: Even when Sam was at Stanford, he wasn’t half as far as he is these days.


**Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue**

**A/N:** I'm pretty sure I'm going to need anti-depressants by the time this season comes to a close. That's all. Dean's PoV, Post-Monster at the End of the Book (no real spoilers), title from Bob Dylan's _Times Are A'Changing. _Read, enjoy, let me know what you think.

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Even when Sam was at Stanford, he wasn't half as far as he is these days.

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Sam takes the wheel more often nowadays. Dean sleeps more, rests his head against the window and closes his eyes against the passing scenery; wakes up disorientated and startled, a crick in his neck and a stab in his gut. The car is always silent when Dean wakes up, but there's no residual whine in the air, nothing that implies his brother's been listening to anything all this time. Dean's hardly ever driven more than twenty miles without something playing—once, while Sam was Stanford, the tape deck broke and Dean listened to twelve hours of country radio. If he ever tells Sam that story, he'll insist they were the longest twelve hours of his life—but then Sammy's always been the quiet one.

-

They stop in Georgia a little after eleven and order breakfast.

Sam still drowns his pancakes in too much syrup, still puts too much creamer in his coffee. He still rips the tops off sugar packets in perfect straight lines and stacks the empty packets next to the spoon he uses to stir. He still pulls a massive bitchface when Dean steals his bacon and rolls his eyes when Dean flirts with the waitress.

Sam pulls a twenty loose from the money clip he still carries around (between them they have thirty-four fake ids, seven fake driver's licenses. The Impala is currently registered to one Richard Hutson. None of it tells more truth than those two curlicue initials engraved on the surface of that clip). His brother still tips generously.

When the waitress tells them to have a good day, Sam still smiles back, but its forced now, strained and awkward.

-

If Sam has nightmares now, they're completely silent. Dean doesn't wake up anymore to the sound of his brother's panicked breathing, doesn't jump into consciousness moments after Sam's been thrown into it.

More often than not, Dean wakes up to Sam's hand on _his_ shoulder, Sam's frowning face, Sam's pinched eyes. Sam doesn't ask if he's alright anymore, just moves out of his space once Dean meets his eye. The room is too small when Dean wakes up and Sam is too close/too far/too quiet/too big/ too much for Dean to handle.

Worse though, is waking up alone, nothing but ceiling and the whine of passing cars to greet him. Because then Dean has to look over at the empty bed Sammy isn't sleeping in and Dean knows what his brother's doing even if he doesn't know where he is (Dean knows what kind of company his brother keeps, because Sam isn't even trying to keep this a secret anymore, even if he still sneaks around like it is one). Dean will stay awake until Sam stumbles in and falls face first into his bed, without shedding so much as his jacket and wait for his breathing to even out.

Then Dean will remember how, when Sam was a little kid, back when two queens meant a bed for Dad and bed for them, Sam would kick and squirm all night long, how Dean would wake up with bruised shins and sides made tender by pointy elbows. Now, his brother sleeps like the dead.

-

Dean's driving and Sam's humming along to CCR. He turns to Dean midquestion, like this is a conversation they've already started, "Hey remember that time in Jersey when Dad told us he might be hunting Big Foot?"

Sammy doesn't usually do the nostalgia thing—it's always been Dean's job to remember things that don't involve a screaming match between Dad and Sam—but Dean doesn't hesitate. It's been a good day. "Yeah, you like cried for the rest night."

Sam twists his mouth and accuses Dean of having an overactive imagination.

"No, you totally did. You begged Dad not. You—what did you say?—you told Dad that the evidence Big Foot did harm was inconclusive."

"It was inconclusive—"

"Because he's not real."

Sam shrugs his shoulders. "Just because the one in Jersey was a fake—"

"It was a mountain man Sam—"

"Doesn't mean all the sightings have been wrong."

"You of all people, Sammy, it's a damn shame. Where'd I go wrong, huh, you're always falling for the hoaxes?" It's a joke, an effortless jab at his brother's gullibility, but there's no missing the tension that descends on them once it's out of Dean's mouth. Sam's face falls and he shrugs, it's a jerky movement.

"Guess I like to believe." The conversation stutters to a halt over the dozens of eggshells that are strewn between them—all the words they've said that neither will take back, the ones that refuse to dissipate or soften, the ones that sting because they were misunderstood, the ones that cut because they were crystal clear—and Sam looks out the window.

-

Dean presses an ice pack against the back of his head and watches Sam, hunched over his own leg, breathing in deep and desperate. Sam pulls his stitches tight and even.

Sam was out of practice after Stanford. The first time he had to put the needle to Dean's skin his hands fumbled and the entire process took longer than it had since their learning days (it used to be a scar, on Dean's shoulder, but now there's nothing left there but a memory. Sometimes Dean wonders whether his last life counts at all without the evidence).

Sam hisses and Dean steps forward. "Here, I'll—"

"No, I've got it."

-

Dean has dreams, ones where he drops Sam off at this apartment and, as he drives away, the radio in the Impala goes white with static. Dreams where he doesn't think to turn back. He has dreams where Sam falls into the mud in Cold Oaks and Dean doesn't run to pick him up. Dean dreams of the heat of the fire back in Kansas, Sam's cries wailing in his ears, tripping down the stairs into the darkness, Sam still clutched in his arms.

Dean has nightmares where he never goes to California, where Sammy goes to law school and gets married and has kids and grows up, old, fat, and happy, and Dean never hears from him again.

-

Sam's laughter has always been short and hard to come by. Nowadays though, it sounds hollow, harsh and self-deprecating (Dean wonders when his brother became so bitter. He tells himself he wasn't there to see it happen. Or maybe he just never wanted to).

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**The End**

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**Feedback is Love**


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